Belladonna (30 page)

Or worse.

Falco’s hand reached for another bloom.

Cass backed her way up the stairs, tucking the letter she had written deep inside the pocket of her cloak. Belladonna ran a hand through Falco’s hair and Cass stumbled, landing on the top step with a thud. Scrambling to her feet, she clawed at the door handle, desperate to be back inside the villa, away from the garden, away from what she had seen.

Too late. Falco whirled around. “Cass,” he said. Pulling free from Belladonna, he galloped across the grass toward the stairs.

Cass finally got the handle to work. She ran inside, slamming the door behind her. Lifting her skirts with both hands, she raced through the dining area to the portego. A servant girl who was dusting the canvases turned to look at her curiously.

Cass heard the sound of the back door opening and closing again. Ignoring the servant’s perplexed look, she ran back down the main stairs to the foyer.

“Cass!”

She flung open the heavy door, relieved to see the horse and carriage just where it had been.

She vaulted her body back into the compartment without even waiting for the driver to assist her. “That was quick,” Siena said.

“He was busy,” Cass said. She turned to the driver. “Go. Now. Please.”

The driver snapped the reins, and the horse whinnied and surged forward. Within seconds the carriage was headed down the dirt drive. Cass didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. She knew what she would find. Falco watching her leave.

The carriage turned onto the main road. “Is everything all right?” Siena asked.

“Yes,” Cass said quickly, willing the carriage to go faster as it headed north toward the Apennines.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.” Siena furrowed her brow.

“Don’t be silly,” Cass said. She could hardly breathe.

Falco and Belladonna. She didn’t want to believe it, but it had been right there in front of her face. The way Falco’s hand had grazed Belladonna’s breast as he adjusted her hair. The way Belladonna had gripped his fingers in her own deformed hand. The look that had passed between them.

That look.

Could Cass have imagined it?

She hadn’t seen Falco’s face, but Belladonna’s had been unmistakable. Triumph. Hunger. A desire to claim what she felt was rightfully her own.

And Falco hadn’t pulled away.

Not until he realized Cass was there. The nerve of him to run after her. Just days earlier he had said her jealousy was unfounded, that Belladonna was “hard” and “unreal” to him. Cass swore under her breath. She had been right all along.

Siena gave her another strange look.

“I’m just worried about Luca.” Cass closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall of the carriage compartment.

The journey home mirrored the trip to Florence, only the mood was infinitely more somber. Cass was a ghost, a shell, going through the motions. She passed the time staring out the carriage window, praying that the weather would hold, that the roads wouldn’t flood, that the wheels wouldn’t break. Her brain registered the beauty of the forests, the mountains, and the crystal-blue lake, but her heart ached when she thought of Falco, and her mind spun obsessively around the problem of freeing Luca.

After loading all of their supplies onto the ship that would take them back to the Rialto, Cass stood at the edge of the deck with Siena, watching as the boat floated away from the shore. The sky was blue and clear.
Grazie a Dio.
If the fair weather held, they would arrive home just two days before Luca’s execution. Cass would need every moment of time she had left to come up with a plan. The farther the mainland receded into the distance, the more Florence felt like a dream. Soon they would be back in Venice, back on San Domenico, where things would return to the way they should be.

Only they wouldn’t.

A grizzled older man introduced himself as the ship’s medic and offered to take a look at Cass’s arm. Her wounds had not been cleaned or rewrapped in days, but the pain in her arm had all but faded. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to see how things were progressing, just to be safe. The medic ripped off her bandages with his callused fingers. Cass squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, steeling herself for what she might see.

“You’re healing nicely,” he said.

She opened her eyes. The bruises on her forearm had faded to a yellowish brown. The torn flesh over her biceps had grown together, but her whole arm was ghost-pale and smelled sour. Cass wrinkled her nose.

The medic laughed. “Nothing a scrub or some sea air won’t cure.”

Later, after everyone else was asleep, Cass made her way to the top deck of the ship. The wind twisted the tail of her cloak as she stared out across the Adriatic Sea. Cass knew the boat’s captain stood just on the other side of the snapping sails, but for the moment she felt completely alone. In a few hours, the sun would rise and they’d dock in the quay behind the Palazzo Ducale. From there, Cass and Siena would catch a ride out to San Domenico Island.

And then what? Time was slipping through her fingers. Cass felt confident she could gain admittance to the Palazzo Ducale. But what match were two girls for an armed dungeon guard?

The boat pitched, and she grabbed on to one of the ropes to steady herself. The rough fiber bit into her skin. Above her head, a torn sail slashed out at the wind. Cass watched the flapping fabric stab the sky repeatedly.

Two girls would be no match at all for an armed guard.

Unless they were armed too.

Weapons?” Siena asked incredulously. “You mean to hurt someone?”

They were finally home: in Agnese’s villa, using the storage room that had previously housed Feliciana as a private place to talk. Cass hadn’t been able to sleep or eat since she’d gotten off the ship at daybreak. She couldn’t think about anything except Luca. She would do anything to save him. Surely Siena understood. Cass looked up at her from where she sat crossed-legged on Feliciana’s makeshift bed. “Not if we don’t have to. Just in case.” Luca’s hourglass was running low. Only two days until his scheduled execution, at noon, in the Piazza San Marco.

Siena paced back and forth in front of her. “Could you really do it? Stab a man?” She stared at the paring knife Cass was holding, as though it were a serpent that might lunge from Cass’s fingers and bite her.

“Yes,” Cass said.

She thought of Cristian. “If my life was in danger,” she amended. She tucked a tendril of hair behind her left ear, enjoying the feel of being able to bend her arm without pain. “What if something goes wrong, Siena? Are you ready to spend the rest of your life as a prisoner in the Doge’s dungeons?” Cass knew she would rather die than suffer that horrible fate.

Siena didn’t answer. “You should return that to the kitchen. Cook will flay the whole staff alive if even a single knife goes missing.”

Cass shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking of stealing. A kitchen knife isn’t ideal anyway. We could buy proper daggers at the market, or a blacksmith’s shop.”

Siena rubbed her forehead, as if she still couldn’t believe they were even discussing it. But she asked, “And what else?”

Cass glanced around the storage room. Unfortunately there was nothing of use in the boxes and trunks, not the ones that were unlocked, anyway. “Masks, maybe?” she offered. “Or veils?” There would be no chance for Cass to resume her normal life after they helped Luca escape. Even if she wasn’t recognized, Luca would never be able to return to Venice without risking arrest. But it was different for Siena. Only Cass—and likely Feliciana—knew of her feelings for Luca. Siena would not immediately be a suspect. If no one recognized her, she would be able to remain Agnese’s servant if she so desired.

Cass realized, suddenly, that helping Luca escape meant starting a life with him. Had it come to that? Was Cass ready to be Luca’s bride? Did she have any choice?

She imagined Belladonna stripping Falco from his paint-spattered clothing. She thought of them naked in the garden, covered only by a handful of those bizarrely giant roses. Her stomach laced itself into knots.

“Are you all right?” Siena asked. “Are you . . . are you scared?”

“No,” Cass said shortly. “I’m not afraid.” There could be no second thoughts. She pushed Falco from her mind. Luca was her future. She would make things right. She wouldn’t give up, no matter what the cost.

Dinner was a struggle. Cass knew her aunt was overjoyed to see her again, but deep lines framed Agnese’s gray eyes, and she seemed to be purposely hiding her concern about Luca’s situation under a veil of light questioning about Cass’s stay in Florence. She wanted to hear everything. What did Cass think of the great marble Duomo? Had she gone for Mass? Had she visited the Uffizi, one of the oldest art galleries in the world? What about the Boboli Gardens? Were they as lovely as everyone said?

Cass didn’t have the heart to tell her aunt that between being attacked by dogs and having her blood drained in her sleep, she hadn’t had much time for sightseeing. Part of her wanted to flee the gloomy dining room immediately to avoid Agnese’s incessant questioning. The truth was right there, rolling around in her mouth. Every second she sat facing her aunt, it crept a little closer to her lips. Cass knew that if she didn’t escape soon, she would blurt out the whole insane plan.

But at the same time, Cass didn’t know how many more conversations she would have with her aunt. The old woman’s voice was music, bringing back a flood of memories: Agnese chastising Cass for falling asleep during her studies, Agnese chastising Cass for her posture, for not wearing her chopines, for falling in the muddy streets and wrecking one of her dresses, for sneaking out of the house at night, for wandering off and getting attacked at Madalena’s wedding.

Cass swallowed back a lump in her throat. Living with her aunt
hadn’t
been just a series of lectures. She also remembered the way in which Agnese welcomed her into the villa when Cass was just ten, the way she allowed Cass to have thirteen-year-old Feliciana as her handmaid, even though at that time Feliciana was just a kitchen servant who could barely dress herself. Cass thought of her new journal that she’d barely gotten to write in because of her injuries in Florence. Agnese had given it to her after the excitement of Madalena’s wedding and the attack on Cass had settled down. She had never felt more connected to her aunt than she had at that moment.

And now she was going to sever that connection, willingly, to try to save Luca.

“You’re so quiet, dear,” Agnese commented. “I suppose you’re still exhausted from your journey.”

Cass nodded mutely, struggling to swallow a bite of fish. “The sun was rising by the time we made it home.” She thought again of her plan, her secret. Agnese had secrets too, locked away in the storage room. How could she and her aunt have shared so much, but still have so much hidden from each other? She couldn’t find the right words to ask about the locked trunks, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the table early either. Forcing a smile, she struggled through the rest of her aunt’s questions as best she could, spinning a half-truth here and there to satisfy the old woman.

When the servants cleared the last of the dessert dishes and Narissa appeared to help Agnese back to her chambers, Cass stood in the doorway to the dining area, watching her aunt’s hunched frame shuffle down the corridor.

Cass returned to her own room and sat at the dressing table, piecing through the loose parchment she had found in the Caravello tomb. The description of the “research” and “subjects” made more sense now. Not only had the Order been testing their experimental elixirs on plants and insects, but they had also been self-administering, documenting vitality, wound healing, and more. Cass glanced again at the register of signatures, scanning the list one more time to see if any additional names sounded familiar. She realized both Piero Basso and Dionisio Mafei were present. But where was Bella Briani? Why wasn’t she listed? Cass again tried to make out the name at the top of the parchment. She thought maybe she could make out the looping swirl of a B. Perhaps the blurred signature belonged to Bella, the leader of the Order of the Eternal Rose.

Were all of her servants members of the Order? Were they all taking test samples of the elixir? Would Belladonna try to indoctrinate Falco eventually? Cass should warn him, but she couldn’t. To try would be fruitless. Even if a message from her made it through to him, he wouldn’t believe her.

Cass flipped to the next page: a sketch of a six-petaled flower, encircled by unfamiliar chemical symbols. Slipper hopped up on the dresser, curious to explore the crinkling parchment. Cass picked up the cat and held him on her lap. He seemed a little thinner than before she left. She petted his soft fur, wondering who would take care of him if she didn’t come home. She held him up to her face so that their noses touched. He wriggled in her grasp before reaching his neck out to nudge her with the top of his head, something he did when he was happy.

“I missed you,” she said, setting Slipper back onto the floor. The cat purred in response. Tears blurred Cass’s vision. She quickly pressed her palms to her eyes to dry them.

She tucked the bundle of parchment inside the drawer of her dressing table and wandered downstairs and out into the garden. Roses crawled up the side of Agnese’s wooden trellis, pinks and reds and corals melding together like fire. Cass settled onto one of the stone benches, remembering how she and Luca had sat in this same spot just two months earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened between them since then. She and Luca had argued. Cristian attacked her. Luca then told her the truth about how Cristian was his half brother, and how he would never allow Luca to be happy.